[www.keralites.net] superstitious beliefs in India

 

Some superstitious beliefs in India… Believe them or not, you decide...

 

Invisible good and evil arrows in Assam...

 

Dysentery, pain and fevers are often attributed to invisible evil baans or arrows in rural Assam.  These arrows, the superstitious believe, are launched by sorcerers with magic bows, at the behest of the target's enemies.  Across the state, witchdoctors and godmen often magical remedies for those targeted in the form of counter-baans that negate or reduce the effect of the debilitating arrows.  Robbery is also dealt with in a rather unique manner in parts of Assam, with witchdoctors using a felon-finding magical lathi or baton locate the thief, and then beat him until he confesses.  Or casting a 'spell' on the hand of person burgled or cheated so that it can 'automatically' point to the culprit.

 

 

(Me: This is by no means unique to Assam.  Variant forms of sorcery launched at the best of your enemies and magical remedies therefor are believed and/or practiced in all parts of the country.  In Kerala the Brahmins call it cheivinai (something evil done by your foe/enemy through his/her sorcerer) and often a mantravadi - witchdoctor - is called in to exorcise it.   Then there are various kinds of doshams - which many suffer from leading to some or the other misfortune or ailment - caused by the planetary positions with reference to their birth-stars and these are set right by astrologers with tailor-made pujas...)

 

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Children gored with hot iron rods in Jharkhand.

 

Children with distended bellies, characteristic of malnutrition and disease, routinely have red-hot iron rods plunged into their sides in part of rural Jharkhand.  The belief is that a child with a protruding belly has worms, which can be killed by the red-hot rod.

 

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Tossing babies from atop a temple in Karnataka…

 

Superstitions come in many forms in Karnataka.  While in some parts, people throw newborns from atop a temple, towards a blanket draped way below, for good luck, in other areas physically or mentally challenged children are forcibly buried neck-deep for six hours during a solar eclipse.  And in one region, Chamarajanagar district, a chief minister never visits because the superstition is that he will lose his seat soon after, since this has happened with three CMs in the recent past.

 

(News courtesy: Hindustan Times, Sunday edition 1/9/13)

 

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Posted by 

cris iyer

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